10 Twitter Tips For Non Profits

Advanced Twitter Tips- Non-Profits Edition Mande White www.FreeSocialMediaHelp.com

“ Suddenly, it seems as though all the world’s a-Twitter”

Relative of Instant Message (IM)

Cousin of blog.

Moment to moment updates of what they're doing or thinking in 140 characters or less.

What are you doing?

Stats

• 8,000,000 visitors to the website in February

• 70% are new users

• 10,000 new accounts created each day

• Net result is 600% growth in 2008

Statistics are courtesy of HubSpot

Basics You Should Not Be Forgetting

Get Started

Follow Your Donors and Members

Retweet (put (RT) in front of the tweet

People love it, builds affection and loyalty

Tweet at least 2-3x per week (build to 2-5 per day)

Be Real

Practice manners

Follow those who follow you

Thank People

Provide Value…Don’t just create noise

New information

Blog posts (Twitterfeed)

Call out Press Releases

Advanced Twitter Tips

1. Use Speed to Your Advantage

Capitalize on News/Holidays/Community Events

Mobilization

Internal/external

Notify activists about latest developments

News is spread via mobile phone

Internal Communications

Have ongoing conversation with members in a decentralized way.

Use it to bring expertise from members or sympathizers

Use to test out ideas, ask questions or brainstorm about next steps with constituency.

Extra Organizational Activism

Use it to partner with other organizations to spread news

2. Magic #

5 a day? What do I Tweet About?

Several tweets a day from you can:

Update those following you on projects status

Tweet your fundraising and program events for those that cannot be there (play by play)

Let others know of fundraising needs

Keep grant makers updated with progress

Quickly find volunteers

Find others who would like to involved with your nonprofit

“ I went in thinking Twitter was a free way to push our message out. Big mistake. We learned to listen. We started winning once we let people decide on their own about our services.”

Amy Worley,

Manager [H&R] Block’s Twitter program,

3. Fundraising

You get to meet people allover the world that might be interested in your cause

You get to hear what people are really thinking about a wide variety of issues.

You can follow other fundraisers and get great real-time advice

You can even promote traffic to your website or those of your friends.

If you can figure out how to communicate in 140 characters or less…think how your fundraising writing will improve!

Tweetsgiving

4. Google Alerts

Setup Google Alerts for your twitter name

Ex @mandewhite

5. Hashtags

Way to create or follow a stream on Twitter

Ex: #fundraising

Create Your Own

Needs to be unique

Follow hashtags

Create a search on tweetdeck

http://search.twitter.com

http://twemes.com

http://hashtags.org

#fundraising

6. Twitter Clients

TweetDeck

Twirl

Twitpic

PingFM

7. Tweet from Mobile Phone

Twitter Mobile

PocketTweets

iTweet

Hahlo 2.0

Twitterberry

8. Integrate

Feed your blog posts into Facebook and Twitter

Direct Message

Parting Thoughts…

Web 2.0 Donors are Different

Vast majority are in 20’s & 30’s and very comfortable with Web 2.0 giving (widgets & apps) and quite often do not go back to Web 1.0 giving (your website)